Update, 9:30 pm: It appears the new hotel tower will fit entirely on the lot directly to the south of the Best Western Plaza Hotel at 6700 S. Main St. We’ve updated this story accordingly.
Medistar and an affiliate of the Redstone Companies are out today with this rendering of the 22-story hotel and apartment tower the firms are planning together for the west side of S. Main St. across the street from the western campus boundary of the Texas Medical Center. Unlike the 40-story hotel and condo tower Medistar had proposed for S. Main across the street from the Texas Medical Center back in 2008 — which stirred up a bit of a fuss with neighbors in neighboring Southgate — this new building, designed by HOK’s Roger Soto, will be set away from the neighborhood’s entrance. It’ll sit next to the Best Western Plaza Hotel, on the 1.35-acre lot at 6750 S. Main St., on the southern end of the block bounded by S. Main, Old Main St., and Travis St. The taller tower Medistar planned in 2008 was intended for a site one block to the north, at the corner of S. Main St. and Dryden.
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There would be approximately 250 hotel rooms in the new development, “with a large percentage of rooms dedicated as suites to cater to the medical center guests that require longer term stays,” a press release artfully explains. Also in the structure: 15,000-20,000 sq. ft. of meeting space, and 40 to 60 apartments on the top floors “for people that desire to live immediately adjacent to the Medical Center.”
The rendering shows the new tower as it would be seen from the southern end of the building across the street, the Texas Woman’s University Health Sciences Institute — Houston Center. The new hotel will face that building’s attached parking garage along S. Main. Construction is expected to begin sometime at the end of this year.
- Texas Medical Center to get new hotel [Prime Property]
- Previously on Swamplot:Â Live on TV: New Med Center Hotel-Condo Tower;Â Newest and Tallest: The Texas Medical Center Goes Condo
Rendering: HOK
Awesome addition to the MED Center Skyline. Sort of reminds me of the First City Tower in DT
It looks like the Best Western is still there in the background
Looks like a good game of Tetris. They can squeeze the square block in the back for the win.
The Best Western Plaza Hotel is in the rendering. It looks like this new building goes in south of it.
Great to see a new tower rise in the medical center area.
From the google map, it looks like they can put this in between what’s already there so not demolishing nothing.
Very cool, I like it. It’s a bit silly for anyone in Southgate to put up a fuss about building height in the Med Center. Look, you chose to live on the edge of the largest medical center in the world, so live with it. The Texas Medical Center is an economic powerhouse, it’s the most important thing in Houston, they can build as tall and whatever they like as far as I’m concerned, just keep that engine humming.
@OkieEric, Texasota, and C: You’re right. We’ve corrected the story.
Per Redstone, it will be built on only half of the lot between the Best Western and the Wyndham — the Main Street half. There are currently no plans for the half that fronts Travis. The Best Western and the Wyndham will stay.
I came here to say what tejas76 said. You, sir or madam, win.
I’ve been in Houston long enough to remember that as the former site of a laetrile clinic, and a strip shopping center where I bought my first fine cigars. The cigar shop has since moved to the Village; the clinic, no guesses.
Great! So when do they repair Main St?
@Shannon
“The Texas Medical Center is an economic powerhouse, it’s the most important thing in Houston”. Ummmmmm, I do believe the energy industry and the 26 fortune 500 companies based here (zero of which are related to the medical industry) would beg to differ with you. Though important and best in class on planet Earth, it’s far from “an economic powerhouse”.
The Med Center as an ‘economic powerhouse’: It is in the sense of being the largest employer in Houston. But a lot depends on NIH funding getting back on track to pay for all the big research projects that are intended to be housed in those sparkly new TMC buildings, employing high-priced staff. Future tax receipts, which are expected to be higher, presumably will pay for this. Regrettably, there is little in the way of private biotech in the TMC area despite the efforts of city fathers, and this will keep the TMC from ever being a true ‘powerhouse’. As to the TMC’s educational missions, the less said the better as the state of Texas is implacably hostile to education.
Fossil Fuels are finite, health care is infinite –discuss amongst yourselves, don’t bother getting back to me